Witch's Heart
by BrushyBrushyLoki
Summary: A retelling of how trolls came into existence in Norse Mythology. Thor, Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three go for a hunt, stuff happens, the trickster lets himself be tricked. Gory towards the end. Mpreg, but not really.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This will be one of the only things I write that makes it to the internet, woot woot!

This is about how trolls came into existence in Norse mythology. I'm a little disappointed with the lack of avengers, but maybe I'll do more mythology and include them or something like that if people review. Also, if I misspell anything, I sincerely apologize, but I'm too lazy to look up the real spelling.

I know that Thor might be a little OOC, but I tried to write him like he is before he's banished: arrogant. And if arrogance stems from pride, and pride is wounded, the arrogant seek revenge. So yes. Loki angst ahead! This is set when Thor and Loki are pretty young, both in their very early twenties (or whatever that equivalent is in norse god age charts), when Sif still has blonde hair.

Onward to the story!

It was a peaceful day is Asgard, a cool breeze blowing through the land, the sun shining over the tips of the trees and painting the world a buttery color.

Unfortunately, the mood of the Golden Prince didn't match the color or the sunlight, nor the color of his title. Thor was wearing a look that could curdle milk, glaring at the road in front of him from atop his horse, with Sif, Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg, and Loki riding behind him in awkward silence. They all know from experience that once Thor gets into such a sullen mood, very few things are able to pull him out.

It was Loki's fault, if you really wanted to point fingers, that his brother was in such a state. He'd felt that a joke would be a good start to their hunting trip, so he'd laced Thor's mead with ink; the result had been a livid and purple-tongued Thor shouting at him while Sif and the Warriors Three giggled behind their hands.

Now, as they rode along, he could almost see the gears working behind that mess of blonde hair, trying to concoct a method of revenge. He didn't want to know what kinds of tortures were being devised for him, and he didn't try to put a stop to it either. In Thor's eyes, if you apologize for something, it shows that you are remorseful, which is an invitation for him to exact a more thorough and brutish revenge.

Loki sniffs the air, wrinkling his pale nose in disdain and breaking the stiff silence. "Do you smell that?"

Thor stays silent, as is expected of him in his sulky mood, but Fandral pipes up with a sarcastic jibe. "What, is there a roasted pheasant lost in Volstagg's beard again?"

Sif snickers, and the large warrior combs his fingers through his facial hair, licking his lips.

"No, it smells like rotting flesh," Loki insists.

"You're just imagining things," says Fandral dismissively.

"No," interjects Hogun flatly. "I can smell it too."

Since it's Hogun who backs Loki up (because they never take Loki seriously, not that he cares much), the rest of the party agree to search for this mysterious scent.

After a time, they came across a corpse, half covered by the brush. It had been an old woman at some point, but all that was left was a limbless torso and a burned neck, the head thrown wildly into a copse of nearby trees, eyes turned to liquid and tongue lolling out of black lips.

"Awful," sniffs Sif, no real pity in her voice.

Thor grunts. "It's just an old witch. Her magic probably backfired on her, the stupid wench. Leave her."

The warriors shrug and spur their horses on. It's not uncommon to hear of a mage's spells going wrong and causing harm or death; Loki knows better than most how dangerous it is to consort with magic, with its fickle nature. However, seeing his brother just leave a corpse to rot without a grave is startling, especially when he thinks that one day, it might be him that needs to be buried after a bad spell.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes," snaps Thor. "We have game to hunt, and we can't stop to bury every idiotic woman who gets herself killed trying to use magic."

"How she was killed doesn't matter. What matters is that she's been killed, and needs a grave. Would you condemn her to walk the earth forever, with no place in Valhalla?" Loki argues. Magic has told him tales of those with power in their soul being unable to join the spirits when not given a proper burial and freed from the bonds of reality.

Thor grunts again. "I don't hear her complaining. Do you, sif?

Sif wrinkles her nose and makes a face, blonde locks swirling around her in a golden halo.

"How about you, Fandral?"

Pointed beard shakes itself no.

"See? She's not going to scold us. She's not going to tell anyone. Let's just get on with our hunt."

Loki can't believe what he's hearing. He can't believe that the Warriors Three and Sif aren't protesting. He can't believe Thor has such a heartless streak.

"Get on with your precious hunt, then. I'll bring what I can find of her body back to the palace, to try and find out if anyone's missing her. Have a good time," he spits, swinging off his horse with taunt limbs, muttering _heartless_ under his breath.

A glint of something unfamiliar creeps into his brother's eyes. "Heartless, eh? Fine then, if you find us a camp and set it up, we'll all bury the wench."

Loki is confused. He's wary of this deal, but in his naivety, tells himself that _this is Thor_, and despite being a bit lazy, he wouldn't do anything too horrible. _He is the Firstborn of Asgard, after all. He knows better than to do something stupid with a corpse. Right?_

So he re-mounts his horse and rides ahead, scouting for a camp.

"Thor, what are you doing?" Sif hisses once she thinks he's out of earshot. "I'm not lifting a finger for this rotting piece of meat!"

"Patience, Sif," Thor soothes in the way that he does when he's planning something. "We'll show him heartless."

Loki knows that something is up. He knows that Thor is probably planning some sort of revenge for the ink, but he knows that the only way to lift his brother's spirits is to play along, so he does. He sets up camp and waits for a good long while for the rest to find him. He's concerned about his brother's attitude and mood, but there really isn't anything to do but hunker down and whether the storm.

Chapter 1 of 3. Don't forget to drop a review on your way out!


	2. Eating his Words

When they find the camp, he's drowsing beside a smallish fire, with sleeping roles laid out for each of his companions, fresh grass and water for the horses, and a pot of soup bubbling in the pot. They ignore his preparations, sneaking to the pot and giggling like schoolgirls, dropping little chunks of a shadowed substance into the broth.

Of course, he wakes, but he stays quiet and lets them think that they are the ones pulling a joke on him for a change. He'll deal with what's in the soup if it will make Thor be cheerful again.

When he wakes early the next morning, the soup he made for the five has gone untouched. He pours himself as much as he can stomach and sets in. It tastes odd, quite different from how it tasted last night, but he tries not to think of what they might have put in it. If he just grits his teeth and pretends that they've pulled a prank on him, maybe his brother will let the earlier joke go.

He prepares breakfast after he's finished, and when Thor awakes, he is delighted to see that the sullen mood lifts with his mention of eating the soup. The companions share looks behind his back, but he pays them no attention.

The hunt goes on. The six of them bring down nearly as much game as they can take home, with Thor making most of the kills. He and Loki usually compete to see who can bring down the most game, but he began to feel a bit queasy shortly after breakfast, not that he's all that surprised.

The sun is setting past the tips of the trees when a pang like the strike of a lance hits him in his gut. He lurches to the side, emptying his stomach over the shoulder of his horse.

Sif squeaks and reins her horse away from his. Thor feels a bit guilty for playing such a nasty trick on his brother. _Maybe putting the heart of the witch in his food was a bit much._

Loki straightens up, wipes his mouth, and promptly reels over the opposite side, landing in a pile of leather on his steed's other side. It snorts and dances away from him.

Thor dismounts to try and pull his brother up, but before he can, Loki is sprinting into the bushes and retching violently.

They wait in silence for him to re-emerge, and he does so when his stomach is empty (it's run out of things to expel, it hasn't calmed in the least), pale and shaking.

"What ails you, brother?" Thor asks, throwing his arm around his thin shoulders. Loki immediately collapses, making a slight gurgling sound.

Concern mars the Thunderer's features. "Loki? Loki!"

The Trickster makes no reply.

Chapter 2 of 3. So much shorter! Sorry.

Drop a review on your way out!


	3. The Troll's Origin

Warning: this is where the gore comes in. I don't think it's much, but you all might disagree. So yes, stuff that usually goes inside the body will get taken out of the body.

Thor throws him onto the front of his saddle and rides for Asgard as fast as his mount will take him.

When he reaches it, there's a trail of frothy pink fluid leaking out of Loki's mouth. He hasn't stirred once.

He's brought to the healer's chambers, and Frigga joins Thor at his bedside, but that does not change his condition. Odin tells his wife that as much as he'd love to stay with Loki, the kingdom must be seen to (though Loki will later remember how Odin once stayed by Thor's bedside all night when he'd sprained his wrist).

They wait for three days, they watch as his body swells and bloats like a tick full of blood, they hear his heartbeat race like a horse's hoofbeats, they feel the scorching fever that rages across his body.

At the dawn of the fourth day, he jerks awake and screeches like a spirit of Nilfheim. His body begins to tremble, his middle quivering like there's something alive in there, and it's trying to claw its way out. Thor jolts awake, and he and his mother jump to Loki's bedside, wondering if he is in his dying throes.

But Loki is far from dead, and his screams make sure everyone knows it. He twists around on his bed, trembling like a leaf in a gale.

"Loki! What's wrong?" Thor demands.

He wails and clutches at his stomach. The skin of his lower abdomen is turning purple and black with congealing blood under the skin, and quivering like all of his guts are shifting.

Then, without warning, the flesh of his midriff is torn open from the inside, and a creature covered in gore and blood claws its way onto Loki's chest.

No color is discernible from the way its skin is smeared with blood, but it's fat, and its legs are shaped like tree trunks; its arms are almost long enough to drag on the ground even though it holds itself up on two legs. A pair of floppy ears droop off either side of its head, its nose looks like that of a beast, and its eyes are the color of beetle shells- shiny black, but with no intelligence or life behind them.

Loki stares at it for a second before fainting dead away. Red fluid has splattered all over Thor by its violent entrance, and he is staring at it in the utmost confusion. Frigga looks as though she wants to vomit as she flicks a piece of adipose tissue off her forehead.

It growls at him, then picks up one of Loki's intestines and starts nibbling on it.

Thor doesn't know what it is, or where it came from, but it's just started eating his brother's insides, and he's definitely not okay with that. He swats it across the room with his bare hand, trying to ignore the way his brain goes_ DISGUSTING NOPE NOPE NOPE DON'T TOUCH THAT._

It howls, shrill and _loud_, as it sails through the air and out the window. The sound cuts off when it hits the ground, and they think it dead until a stable boy finds its footprints a few days later, leading out into the wilderness.

Thor shakes his head and crushes a stone of healing over his brother's torn and ripped body. Frigga sets herself down in his bedside chair and takes a deep breath.

Many hours later, when Loki has healed enough to ask what happened (because what he remembers can't be true, can it?), the All Father has spared a few minutes for his son and is standing with Frigga and Thor beside his bed.

The task of explaining the mess has fallen to Thor, but how can he stand up with his father, mother, and brother watching and admit that it was his laziness and hubris that caused it?

"Perhaps the soup was undercooked? Some sort of parasite must have been in the water you used for the broth."

There. That was mostly true… somewhat true, at least.

Loki's eyelashes flutter. "Funny. I could have sworn that I used water from a skin."

"You've had a long ordeal, Loki. The details about the trip will be fuzzy," says Frigga gently, rubbing a damp towel over her son's face.

"Rest," commands the All Father, then turns to Thor. "Come, son, you've spent enough time at Loki's bedside. Why don't you go spar with the Warriors Three, or Sif?"

Even with Frigga's gentle ministrations, a feeling of abandonment settles over his shoulders. He's just had a creature crawl out of his body, and his father is dragging his brother away?

Why doesn't Odin stay?

Why doesn't_ Thor_ stay?

Most of all, why doesn't his father call him son the way he does to Thor?

As they make their way to the door, Odin stares at his golden child with a look that says he knows exactly what happened on the hunt (and he probably does, since he often asks Heimdhall whether or not his sons are responsible for unfortunate happenings that involve them). However, he says nothing, leaving Loki alone with Frigga, blinking back tears.

The trickster allowed himself to be tricked. The Thunderer let down his brother. The All Father let down his not-son. Thus, the first troll was born.

The end.

Chapter 3 of 3. DONE.

If people end up liking this, I'll make a sequel that goes through another mythological event ( next up is Hela, but I'm definitely doing the origins of Sleipnir, because Sleipnir is the bomb diggity of all horses. Besides, force feeding Loki angst is my favorite thing to do). Whether or not I find the time is anyone's guess, though.

Thanks for reading! Drop a review on your way out!


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